Opinion | We must never forget 9/11

It was Sept. 11, 2001. I was four years old. I don’t remember a lot from those days. However, I will always remember that day. I was in the kitchen, playing Mario Party 2, when I heard my mom crying on the phone. “Are we safe? What do you think this means? Those poor people!” my mom said. Curious, I went to the living room where the other television was, and there it was on CNN, the top of one the Twin Towers, submerged in fire and smoke.

9/11 cost the lives of 2,977 innocent people, injuring another 6,000. It was the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement. 343 firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers lost their lives that day.

The attack was planned by the militant Islamist terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, led by its leader Osama bin Laden. The attack involved 19 participants who hijacked four planes resulting in the destruction of the World Trade Center and the partial collapse of the Pentagon’s west side.

9/11 would lead to a sequence of events that dramatically changed American and world history.

9/11 kicked off the War on Terror, a now seemingly never-ending series of various conflicts in which the United States became involved. The cause at first was justified, the United States had just had suffered the worst terrorist attack in human history, of course the U.S. should retaliate against Al-Qaeda. To suggest otherwise is foolish.

However, over time The War on Terror started to broaden to include countries that were not involved in 9/11. Then it started to broaden out to include terrorist groups completely unrelated to Al-Qaeda. I understand it’s in the name, but if you told all Americans that in 18 years, we would still be fighting terrorists in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Yemen and Pakistan, they wouldn’t exactly be on board with The War on Terror.

9/11 like every major incident, created a series of conspiracies resulting in the “9/11 Truth Movement.” The movement gained enough hype that even former Representative and later Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney was a member. Asking questions is fine, but alleging that the American government killed thousands of their own civilians, costing $10 billion in damage, to justify The War on Terror is absurd.

The fact that some of those the users, being presumably American, are justifying the deaths of thousands of fellow citizens citing foreign policy like uncaring brats, while there are many undocumented immigrants who can only dream of being an American citizen, is a shame.

It’s important that politicians help give those who sacrificed for their country the care they need. That means putting fiscal policy aside.

To conclude, 9/11 must never be forgotten, in the memory of the lives lost, the lives of firefighters and law enforcement, the lives of soldiers and foreign civilians and the lives of first responders. 9/11 reminded us that a period, however small, can achieve a time of political-less unity. 9/11 was a day that changed the world.

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